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The last couple days I bashed this truck off the snow ramp were a bit unlucky with breakages that seemed to occur every 2 or 3 launches. Nothing major, but a bit frustrating. The rear of the ramp is melting away quick and ive had to build up the face of the ramp a few times already. When building up the ramp, I gave it some more vert to try and get the truck to land on the rear slope of the ramp, but the big air launches still end up landing on flat ground.

I am amazed that I have not bent a shock shaft yet as i am still running the stock shafts in the strc bodies. Stub axles have been swapped out of this rig more than the lipos have, so I am now running HPI drive shafts in the rear that I had originally made for my HR P2de and they are holding up strong. Oh yeah and you guys have all seen those nice shiny looking steel cvds on ebay, well dont waste your money on em cuz theyre garbage. Youll see in the following video that i bent one stub axle and snapped the other, they are as strong as warm butter. When i had first bought the shiny steel cvds for my P2de and posted a pic on the forum, I remember rag6 called them "Integy-ish" looking, well he was right on the money on that one. Fifty bucks well wasted!

I upgraded the rear bearing carriers to some blue Traxxas Aluminum carriers for now cuz they were in stock at Best Buy, just until I get all the new HR parts ordered. I also dropped in an 18 tooth pinion for a bit more speed and managed to pull off a 48mph launch/backflip which is the last jump in the video. Enjoy:

I'm also in SK (Saskatoon) and one of our almost new Pede's had the bearing in the motor rust and blow out the other day.. Our post snow cleanup hasn't involved any teardowns yet, just a wash up, dry (air compressor) and wd-40 around the parts. If the snow ever leaves I won't have to worry about it snow much, but its hard to resist using the snow banks for some rather large air!

I'm also in SK (Saskatoon) and one of our almost new Pede's had the bearing in the motor rust and blow out the other day.. Our post snow cleanup hasn't involved any teardowns yet, just a wash up, dry (air compressor) and wd-40 around the parts. If the snow ever leaves I won't have to worry about it snow much, but its hard to resist using the snow banks for some rather large air!

Thanks!

What?! We're supposed to do an after snow clean-up? oh, you mean like this?

Yeah, that's pretty much the extent of my after snow clean up. When I come in from running in the snow, I take the body off, remove the lipo, turn the truck upside-down on a towel and that's where it sits until I run it again. I never maintain my bearings, I just hit up eBay and buy 50-60 Traxxas rubber sealed bearings from chop shops or parts lots for dirt cheap (I can usually score 50-60 bearings for about 25-30 bucks) at the beginning of the year and I usually have some left over at the end of the year.

One of the things that I do at the start of winter before I go out running in the snow or water (but only in winter before running in snow) is to check all motor and wheel bearings, and before reinstalling them, I toss all the bearings in a plastic container with a big glob of grease (winter rated grease), put a lid on the container and give it a shake to coat the outside of all the bearings in grease. Then I pull the bearings out of the container and install them without wiping off any of the grease, this just prevents any of the steel surfaces from forming rust and also helps to seal any spaces where water can get through the seal. For the motor I do the same thing, but after installing the bearing in the front end bell of the motor, I put a bit more grease on the outer side of the front bearing to keep water from getting into the can of the motor. I don't like having to perform excessive maintenance on my trucks, so I try to do everything I can in the first place to prevent parts from failing, this way i can drop the truck at the door when I come inside, and whenever I want to bash again I just grab the truck on the way out and give er. Plus, I break parts often enough that I can do any inspections while repairing.

The other thing I do every once in a while when I need to clean the truck for repairs is to clean the truck really good with "Permatex Perfect Plastic" cleaner/polish. This stuff makes old, dirty, faded 1and hazy plastic look new again and also coats the plastic with a waterproof and anti-static barrier that repels water and makes dirt and mud fall off when it dries and makes the next cleanup really quick and easy.

I don't clean the p4de unless it is excessively dirty and I need to repair it. I try to avoid running in mud with my trucks cuz mud is terrible for wearing out moving parts in a hurry. I just do the preventative measures explained above around 2-3 times per year and run the heck out of the truck when I please.

I own quite a few brushless motors and a few brushed motors and I've had to replace bearings due to wear, but I've never had one seize from rust or corrosion or from anything else. My very first vxl motor that I bought over two years ago has had hundreds upon hundreds of 3s lipo runs put through it in every type of dry and wet weather conditions and has never been rebuilt and still has the original bearings in it and runs as strong as it ever did. The bearings are getting pretty noisy from being bone dry, but I've only opened the motor up once to dry it out after my truck got got submerged in some crazy deep ditch water and stayed there for 10-15 mins while I ran back to the house and grabbed my quad and a hook (golf club) to retrieve it from the bottom of the ditch.

Thanks man. When I first started posting videos it was such a long and painstaking task to edit all the footage, then add music and slo-mo shots, captions etc. but now that I have done a few vids and got some practice in the editing department, I'm kinda starting to enjoy putting the vids together. The most time consuming part of putting the video together is finding a good tune that doesn't have any curse words, they seem to be few and far between these days. The irony of finding music suitable for a g rated forum is that black/death metal has the least amount of swears in the lyrics. I guess when you're screaming so loud, there's really no point in cursing. Lol

Man i just tried to watch your new vid and its blocked by emi......peace

That's totally bunk for sure! I was wondering if some people would be blocked cuz I received an email from YouTube saying something about Emi content. It's the daredevil song by drowning pool/white zombie that i used in the video. I'll change the music right away and upload it again, sorry bout that man....I'm on it!

It works fine dude and its one sick vid baldy and the flips are sweet and its nice to see you are a hard basherAnd what music tracks that broKeep them coming man......peace

I've always been a fairly hard basher, but now that I've been putting out a lot of videos it just doesn't seem right to post a new video up that doesn't top the previous one. Since my video editing skills are still up and coming, I have to rely more on the bashing content to make the video worthy enough to watch from beginning to end, which in turn is making my bashing much more aggressive. It's not so much the huge air that I'm addicted to, im all about the mid air manipulation (flips n whips etc) of the truck, so the more time the truck is in the air the better.

The music track in that video is by Fear Factory and is called "Fear Campaign". It's from their "Mechanize" album released in 2010 and is IMO their best album to date.

I'm loving the snow ramp, but it's getting warmer every day here, so pretty soon I'm gonna have to come up with some other way to break parts. Ive been scoping out the intense new skatepark in the city, so that may be the next stop as soon as it is all dried up. It's the perfect time of year for bashing the skatepark cuz its still too chilly outside yet for the sk8rs to be out in full force.

I also like to bash as hard as i can without being too nuts but there is a awesome park about 15-20mins away from the house which has become my new fav stop for bashing so i am in the process of filming with my 10 year old so soon i will put up a vid and see what you think dude...Peace baldy and keep on trucking

Now that the snow is melting and the streets are all dry, i have been running this truck quite a bit on the dry asphalt and I can now see the impact that all the huge jumps have had on this truck. When on the dry asphalt this thing cant hold a straight line at all and tracks to the right like all 4 wheels are pointing to the right. It also pulls hard to the right upon hard acceleration and wanders all over the road causing me to have to constantly correct the steering. It's absolutely annoying to run this truck on pavement now! I had my old 2' wide launch ramp out on the street and could barely keep the truck in control enough to hit the ramp, it's pretty sad how terrible this truck drives now. Lol. I just finished replacing all the hinge pins for the carriers and c blocks cuz every one of them was bent.

I did manage to hit the little launch ramp a few times and managed to crack and/or shatter the outer lip of 3 out of 4 ofna mt splits wheels. I didn't figure I'd ever break the mt splits, but these ones are pretty old and likely a bit more brittle now, plus I was hitting the launch ramp at around 45mph and getting around 15' of air and landing on asphalt, so with that kind of abuse there isn't many plastic wheels that would survive for long. the tires are still holding onto the wheels, so I'm gonna go back out today and finish em off....on video of course!

Just getting the truck ready to start the new season. New 69 Camaro body painted metallic purple with black racing stripes. Then mounted up some Losi Zombie Max tires and they hook up real hard just like trenchers!

I also made up a couple new ramps to help me destroy this new body! Ill get vids up as soon as i get time.

Wow baldy that camaro looks awesome, i knew there was someone on here that made that body fit. What did you do as far as body posts to make it fit? Thats my next pede body for sure. Thats the hpi 69 camaro?

Hey Baldy, good to see you here again. Body looks nice. You should make some pics at daylight so the colors are more clear.

Thanks. And for sure ill get some better pics up as soon as its nice enough outside to take this unit out.

Originally Posted by roscoeP

Wow baldy that camaro looks awesome, i knew there was someone on here that made that body fit. What did you do as far as body posts to make it fit? Thats my next pede body for sure. Thats the hpi 69 camaro?

I run the Monster Jam adjustable body mounts for the 2wd Stampede. I decided to come up with an easy way to mount em to the p4de, cuz i haven't come across a body (p2de or p4de) that i cant mount using the monster jam adjustable mounts. Just skip back to earlier in this thread and i posted exactly how to make the Monster Jam mounts fit on this truck. Oh and this Camaro is actually a replacement body for the Vaterra 69 seen here:

I like this body cuz its got the little extra chrome details like the mirrors and bumpers.

Originally Posted by spenniepoos

Hey baldy sick camaro and as usual awesome paint job hope you have been all good haven't seen you post on here for ages dude......peace

Thanks man, ya its been a while. Been crazy busy with work and my son. Gonna try to get on here more often again cuz i miss it.

Originally Posted by DiggerPede

Baldy, glad to CYA back bro. That's one bad mammer jammer right there.

Thanks baldy on the info on the 69 camaro, i will look at how your mounting is done. Vattera shell is quite pricey but looks real good. Gonna be hard to bring myself to bash a $55 body but i love the look. Gonna be one of my 2s bodies or shelf queen for a little while. Check out my stampede 4x4 body ideas thread for some that i have done rusty style. And this one.
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Thanks baldy on the info on the 69 camaro, i will look at how your mounting is done. Vattera shell is quite pricey but looks real good. Gonna be hard to bring myself to bash a $55 body but i love the look. Gonna be one of my 2s bodies or shelf queen for a little while.

Originally Posted by spenniepoos

That black 1969 camaro body is just off the chain and would fit nicely on the pede but its too expensive for me dude I could get two proline body's for that money........peace

The prepainted Vaterra bodies are more expensive at 55, but i bought a clear one and already have tons of paint on hand. Really when you add up the total cost of a clear body (~$30-40), then want to paint it with one or two colors that you dont have on hand (~$7-14), then you want to tint the windows (~$7), and then to top it off you may need to back the paint (~$7) youre looking at anywhere from $51.00 to $68.00. Depending on which body you want, it could be a lot more. You also may need to figure a way to mount it, and that will cost ya too. No matter how you look at it, new bodies arent cheap and good deals are rare.

Ive found that the best way to save a bit of cash is to maximize the coverage of your paints. This is where a backing paint is really handy, and usually cheaper than other colors too. It doesnt take much paint to cover an rc body but because the body is clear, people tend to hold it up to the light and when they can still see light through it they figure they need more paint. All thats needed is even coverage with the first coat, then use the backer to get full coverage. This also allows you to manipulate the brightness (white backer) or darkness (black backer) of the primary color and it will be more durable and less likely to flake as well. If i paint a body with two colors and a backer, all 3 cans will all still be around 2/3 full when im finished, Maybe slightly less if its a larger body. It took me a bit to get used to using less paint and a backer, but now id never do it any other way.

Just my 2¢ though, youre welcome to plow on as much paint as you want to.